Psalms 88 - Introduction

LXXXVIII.

“If you listen,” says Lord Bacon, “to David’s harp, you will hear as many hearse-like airs as carols.” But even among these this psalm stands alone and peculiar for the sadness of its tragic tone. From beginning to end — with the one exception of the word “salvation” in the first line — there is nothing to relieve its monotony of grief. If this wail of sorrow is the expression of individual suffering there is no particular interest in ascertaining its date, unless we could also fix on its author. Uzziah when in “the separate house” of leprosy” (see Note on Psalms 88:5), Hezekiah in his sickroom, Jeremiah in his pit, Job on his dunghill, have each in turn been suggested. But the very fact that the tone of the psalm suits any one of these as well, and no better, than another, warns us of the uselessness of such suggestions.

Indeed it is extremely doubtful whether the psalm is a picture of individual sorrow at all, and not rather a figurative description of national trouble. There is a want of distinctness in the cause of the mourning. The battle-field, sickness, flood, imprisonment, each in turn is employed to represent it; and while at one time speaking of himself as at the point of death (Psalms 88:3), the poet goes on now to picture himself as actually in the grave, in sheôl itself. The expression in Psalms 88:15, “from my youth up,” is not in any way against the reference of the psalm to the community. (See Psalms 129:1, where it is expressly said “Israel may use the expression.) The poetical form is almost regular.

Title. — See titles, Psalms 42, 48

Upon Mahalath Leannoth. — See title, Psalms 53, where “Mahalath” occurs alone. Render, Upon the sickness of distress, i.e., upon a sickening distress, and understand it, as in other cases, as the name of a tune or first words of a hymn associated with music suitable to this melancholy effusion.

For “Maschil” see title, Psalms 32.

Heman the Ezrahite — i.e., of the family of Zerah, the letters having been transposed; not the Heman of 1 Chronicles 6:33, but of 1 Kings 4:31; 1 Chronicles 2:6.

This long inscription is really made up of two: “A song or psalm for the sons of Korah,” and “To the chief musician,” &c